Sorry I'm a little late getting to this post; it's been a tough day. I needed to get my passport out via Fed-Ex (no pun - or bad headline - intended) so it can be expedited in time for our family trip to Belize later this month (I'll solicit traveler advice in an OT post closer to our ETD). I don't know about you, but my handwriting is awful and I'm bad at filling out forms and extra bad at filling out waybills etc. Long and short of it: I went through four different, identical forms and three different Fed-Ex envelopes before I got it right. What the hail is wrong with me, anyway? (The question is rhetorical, BTW).
Anyway, you all know we've been having a very sprightly discussion about Roger Federer missing the Davis Cup this weekend (bulletin: Stan The Man Wawrinka is out as well; he injured his knee pretty badly in practice. Spain should send in B te - C te - D team). My ESPN post on Davis Cup and the U.S. is up, and this post is only tangentially related to it. So we can start from scratch.
The most interesting thing to me about TMF skipping the Davis Cup tie with Spain (let's forget all about Wawrinka's injury for a moment) is that it reveals the bind he was put into - or into which he leaped, perhaps with his eyes not quite wide open - by becoming so cozy with the tournament and, it appears, the powers-that-be in the autocratic Emirate of Dubai.
I'm not going to get into the well-documented human rights issues at play in Dubai -suffice it to say that even good ole middle-brow Wikipedia sees fit to mention them in its brief, main entry (you can use the Search bar on the right if you want to see my previous thoughts on the subject).
Let's look at this strictly as a tennis issue. It seems to me that Roger didn't want to insert Davis Cup into his extended, post-Australian Open vacation in the sunny climes of Dubai. It seems equally obvious that he has a long piece of work to look forward to: playing Dubai, Indian Wells and Miami (the latter two Masters Series events) back-to-back-to-back. Now let's assume that TMF is making his performance in majors and, to a lesser degree, Masters Series events, his priority. He's playing to be the GOAT, right? He's all over history, right? He's a proud traditionalist, right?
Making those assumptions, you have a right to ask, "What the hail is he doing playing Dubai?"
Of course, we all know the answer to that. He's making a lot of dough. God bless him.
The fact is, Dubai sticks out of this schedule like a sore thumb. Remove it and insert Davis Cup and you have a schedule that more cleanly and clearly conforms to the priorities that TMF seems to have embraced. He would have almost two weeks off after the end of the first major, then, after three days of Davis Cup, a month off before he chases two successive Masters titles over the course of about three weeks.
But let's look at what else has been sacrificed here in order for Federer to meet his obligations to Dubai. Great asTMF is, Rafael Nadal still holds a superior head-to-head, he is TMF's nemesis on clay, and, by most accounts, he has gone where few have dared to venture before: into Roger's head.
Roger may already be the GOAT but, as Mats Wilander said, "It's weird to be the best of all time and not be able to beat one guy in your own time." That contradiction was partly muted by Federer's victory over Jet Boy at Wimbledon, and the Davis Cup tie in Switzerland loomed, through pure serendipity, as a tantalizing potential opportunity for TMF to further demolish the myth as well as the reality surrounding their rivalry.
Oh, sure, there's still this matter of clay. But it might be easier to take Jet Boy on clay if he felt more like the hunted than the hunter, and if he had to play with the nagging feeling that the tables were turning. The fact that Nadal has struggled since Wimbledon only made TMF's potential Davis Cup opportunity more striking. Here was his chance to lure Nadal into combat on a big stage, on a fast indoor carpet, before a wildly supportive home crowd. How would Jet Boy feel, leaving Geneva on the wrong end of a 2-1-2 beatdown?
But that scenario was relegated to fantasy; the reigning reality is Dubai.
I don't want to blow this way out of proportion. Players throughout history have made odd, counter-intuitive choices, and for all kids of reasons besides money. I have to assume that TMF really likes the Dubai vibe; his love affair with the city-state probably will amount to a home court advantage for him when the tournament rolls around. He may even be granted Sheikh status by the ruler of the Emirate, Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, complete with a reserved parking space at the palace for his camel, although these days Sheikh's tend to prefer cherry-red Ferraris.
We just don't know how all this will play out, but it will be interesting to watch. My own feeling is that in forging his relationship with Dubai, TMF was seduced into something that has more repercussions than he probably anticipated, and that his pride - he is, after all, worshipped in many precincts, including these - wouldn't allow him to turn back, even if he decided it might be a better course of action. And remember, now that Andre Agassi isn't around to tell us how much he'd like to live and raise his family in Dubai, the role has been passed on to TMF.
It's hard being an ambassador.
